This invention relates generally to battery caged row arrangements such as utilized in raising poultry, and more particularly, to one wherein the cages are provided with manure shed elements and an associated cleaning system.
It is typical in large poultry houses to provide long rows of spaced and stacked cages for housing poultry, the cages being generally arranged with at least portions of the stacked cages overlapping the one disposed therebeneath, In such poultry cage row arrangements, it is advantageous to provide sheds or manure collecting means upon which the droppings from the upper rows of cages may be caught and dried. The prior art includes devices for removal of the manure, one such arrangement being as shown in my earlier U.S. Pat. No. 3,783,829 entitled "Manure Sheds and Joist Cleaner Arrangement". In my earlier patent, there is described a scraper assembly which is moved along the length of the manure collecting sheets in order to cause the manure to drop into a central pit disposed beneath the cages. The scraper assembly as described therein, is moved from one end of the poultry cage system to the other end at which time a reversing switch is activated to change the direction of the drive motor. In that arrangement, one of the scraper blades is operational and removes the manure while travelling in the one direction while another blade is operative while travelling in the other direction.
Thus, in the prior art it has been known to use a single drive unit attached at the end of a cage row to two scraper blades. By means of this prior art arrangement, one scraper is used to clean manure off the collecting board while the other scraper is inactive and deadheading back. At the point when the active cleaning scraper reaches the end of the row, the drive unit is reversed at which time the scraper which was cleaning previously is now deadheading back and the other scraper becomes the active cleaning scraper. By the means disclosed herein a single scraper assembly is used which can clean the manure off the collecting boards in both directions. Such a system is highly advantageous in that it reduces the energy required to drive the scraper assemblies by approximately fifty percent. With the cage rows being utilized in lengths of 400 to 500 feet, such a saving is substantial.